A Taste of Paula Deen

She is famous for her love of down-home comfort food, the sort that invariably calls for such sinful substances as butter or shortening or bacon (or sometimes all three). She is also known for her devotion to her family, especially her sons, Jamie and Bobby, her husband, Michael, and her brother, Bubba. And, on this day in a Manhattan photo studio, Paula Deen is sharing yet another signature characteristic: her loud and infectious laugh.

More From Delish

Deen, 61, is having a ball, tossing her head back to guffaw as she spears a piece of coconut cake and cracks, "No one had better get between a fat girl and her food!"

This is precisely the sort of good-natured self-ribbing that, as much as her cooking, has made Deen a star. Her success has always stemmed not only from her yummy, definitely-non-diet recipes, but from her willingness to reveal her personal life to viewers. So now, as Mother's Day approaches, she is eager to share her memories of the time she spent with her mother and grandmother, and to talk about the dishes that have special meaning to her and her family.

Fans of her two hit Food Network cooking shows and five best-selling cookbooks already know Paula's tale. Raised in exceedingly humble circumstances, she married as a teen, and then lost both her parents by the time she was 23. For years afterward, she struggled with agoraphobia, a fear of public spaces that kept her trapped at home. Divorced after 24 years of marriage, she had no clue how to support herself. Until she turned to what the women in her family had always done best: cooking.

The result was a Savannah restaurant named for her little family: The Lady and Sons. It soon became a local sensation, and cookbooks followed. Before long, the Food Network came calling, and Deen began bringing her trademark mega-charm (and mega-calories) to viewers. Still sassy and self-deprecating — talking to GH, she refers to herself, more than once, as a "heifer" — she hasn't let fame make her too cautious. (She is, after all, the first host ever to have her language censored by the Food Network — for a colorful word that she let slip while making hot wings.) Deen says she never really expected a career in the limelight — or, for that matter, in the kitchen. Nonetheless, she wound up learning enough to last a lifetime.

The lessons started slow. "Growing up, I had a very busy social life," she says in a languid drawl. "It wasn't until I was a sophomore in high school that I asked Mama if I could come into the kitchen and have her teach me how to cook something. Well, I wasn't in there five minutes before she said, 'Okay, honey, you have to go now.' I made her so nervous she was about ready to throw up. So I really didn't have an interest in being in the kitchen until after I was married, when I was 18. It didn't take me long to realize that Mama was not going to show up at my house every day and cook."

Deen says she learned the most from her maternal grandmother, Irene Paul, a "fabulous" Southern cook who lived to be 91. But it was a moment in the kitchen with her mom that still resonates. "I had been married for about six months when Daddy died and Mama had to go back to work," she says. "I don't know why I'm remembering this ... because, really, my memory is so poor, sometimes I wonder how many things I'm probably just blocking out. But I remember, this was when Mama was working at the linen department of JCPenney. I called her and I said, 'Mama, I'm cooking spaghetti. When you get home from work, do you want to stop by and eat?' And I just remember that when she came over, she was in my kitchen, fixing herself a plate, and she turned to me and said, 'Paula, honey, you're going to be a better cook than your mama.' I looked at her and said, 'That will never happen.' But wasn't that a strange thing for her to say! And isn't it odd that I still remember it?"

Her voice catches and she falls silent for a few moments, then takes a deep breath.

"And anyway, she was wrong. You know, nobody can ever cook as good as your mama. And I know she felt the same way about her mother's cooking, because as we'd sit down to eat when I was little, she'd say, 'Oh, this isn't as good as the way your grandmama makes it,' and of course, my brother, Bubba, and I thought she was crazy. Mama's cooking was wonderful," she says, drawing the word out into extra syllables. "She put three meals a day on the table: a big breakfast for Bubba and me before we went to school, and a big lunch for Daddy in the middle of the day when he'd come home, and then dinner for all of us each night."

These days, Deen isn't putting three meals on the table — although she does serve up Southern goodies like her famous hoe cakes (a sort of flattened corn bread biscuit) to the millions who watch her on TV, buy her books, and read her magazine, Cooking with Paula Deen. And she spends little time at the restaurant in Savannah, which is run by her two sons while she juggles show tapings, book signings, and public appearances. But her boys grew up on her meals, and they feel about her the same way she does about her own mom.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

"I think she's the greatest cook in the world," says Bobby, 38. "There is so much love that goes into everything that she makes. It's what she did for us, growing up. People love her food, and she loves them right back, through her food."

"You know, I think people have this idea that Mama is hooked up to a butter IV at home," adds Jamie, 40, the father of Deen's beloved only grandchild, 1-year-old Jack. "The truth is, she just believes in having good things in moderation. Everything is probably okay for you if you don't have too much."

The Deen brothers have not only followed their mother into the restaurant business, they've joined her in efforts outside the kitchen. This past year, they teamed with Smithfield Foods, a major meat processor with whom Deen has an endorsement contract. Together, they've pledged to give a million meals to local food kitchens that help the hungry. "All three of us remember what it was like when we were one paycheck away from being broke," says Bobby. "And my mother isn't the sort of person who is going to forget where she came from just because she's famous now. She truly wants to help. She has such a good heart, and I think that's the main reason why so many people are drawn to her. She wins them over with either her personality or her food."

More From Delish

There's one person, however, who isn't completely bowled over by her cooking. Deen's husband of four years, Michael Groover, is a rugged former tugboat captain with some fairly defined tastes of his own. "Listen, he hurt my feelings so bad," Deen says. "He said his mama made the most fabulous pear crisp in the world, so I said, 'Well, I can do that.' So I made it, and I said, 'What do you think?' But now, you cannot ask Michael a question if you don't want the truth. The man doesn't have a lie in him. And so he said, 'Well, it's just not nearly as good as my mama's.' And I'll tell you, I've tried it many times since, that darn pear crisp, and I still can't get that sucker right!" Deen lets loose with that laugh again.

Underperforming pear crisps aside, she still knows more than a few recipes that are just like Mama used to make, as well as special treats she created for her own boys. Here, she looks back at the meals she has loved the most, and reveals the stories behind each delicious dish.

Bobby's Goulash: "Oh, my gosh, how Bobby loves this. It was actually my mama's recipe, and it eventually became part of what I did in the kitchen as well. I'll tell you something: It's basically just homemade Beefaroni. To this day, for his birthday, it is still Bobby's requested meal."

Grandmother Paul's Fried Chicken: "She taught me that, in order to have good fried chicken, you should wash and season the bird the morning you're preparing it for dinner. Don't wait and do it right before you start cooking. Throw it in the refrigerator, seasoned, that morning, and give it a chance to soak up all the salt and pepper and goodness."

Mom's Banana Dessert: "Growing up, when Bubba and I would come home from school, on the counter when we walked in the back door there'd be a banana pudding waiting for us. Oh, my, Bubba and I would dive into that thing, and eat it like we'd never eaten before."

Michael's Favorite Banana Cake: "This is actually my husband's mother's recipe, and it's Michael's favorite cake. He loves it so much that when we got married, I selected this to be his groom's cake and I made it for him myself. I guess this is one of his mother's recipes that I seem to have gotten right!"

Jamie's Coconut Cake: "Even when I'm trying to be good, this cake is my undoing. It's my son Jamie's favorite; he asks for it every year — around Christmastime, actually. It's also great in the summertime because it's light and fluffy. But when I was a little girl, I remember my grandmama and her sister, Aunt Clara, making the most fabulous coconut cake, and I just adored it. So when it became my turn, as a grown-up, to make fruitcake at Christmas, I decided to make coconut cake instead. Now, my whole family, especially Jamie, looks forward to it every year."